Easter Sunday represents the foundational claim of Christian faith, the highest day of the Christian year as celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. But many Christians are unsure what the claim that Jesus had been raised to new life after being crucified actually means—while non-Christians often find the whole idea of resurrection bemusing and even ridiculous.
For centuries, the discipline of Christian “Hebraics” consisted primarily of Christians cherry-picking Jewish texts to support the traditionally assumed contradiction between the Jews — whose alleged dry legalism contributed to their fumbling their ancient tribal covenant with God — and Jesus, who personally embodied God’s new covenant of love. But today seminaries across the Christian spectrum teach, as Vanderbilt University New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine says, that “if you get the [Jewish] context wrong, you will certainly get Jesus wrong.”
Christianity Today has announced the winners of its 2008 Book awards. Some of the books may raise a few eyebrows. The winners include Anthony Flew, There Is A God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
The last certainty is the certainty of death. It is the one thing of which we can be sure. We may try to forget it, but it will not forget us. Nor can we ever really forget it until we have faced it and come to a decision about it. In the midst of life we are in death, unless we know that in the midst of death we are in life.
The best symbols and stories, “classics,” have what David Tracy calls a “permanent excess of meaning.” And they give rise to a never-ending process of interpretation. I say this, not because I doubt the truth of the Easter story. Rather, I say it because of the kind of story it is. I believe the tomb was empty. I believe that Jesus appeared to his friends. I also happen to believe that this story creates as many problems as it solves.